Bainbridge Island officials said Tuesday the city has terminated its contract with the out-of-state consultants who were developing a new logo and other marketing materials that would be used to promote Bainbridge.

City Manager Doug Schulze told the council at its meeting Tuesday the city had reached a negotiated end to consultant firm Arnett Muldrow & Associates’ work with the city.

“We just reached a point where we decided that they weren’t going to be able to provide us with the logo designs that we felt we were looking for,” Schulze said.

“We were really hoping that as we continued to work with them we’d get something that kind of popped and was the right logo for the community,” he said.

“We  just weren’t seeing that,” Schulze said.

Schulze said the city would still receive the work that  had been completed so far — which was roughly 80 to 90 percent of the project — and the South Carolina-based company would be paid half of the fee set out in their $22,545 contract.

The announcement of the about-face for the city comes after a story last week in the Review that detailed how work on the logo project had floundered in recent weeks, with officials involved in the branding project unable to come to agreement with the consultants on a new logo.

The story also recounted how the city refused to release emails between city officials and the consultant firm that included new design logos and comments from the city that said the latest versions of the revamped logo were unacceptable.

The city withheld or blackened out 35 pages of emails between the city and its branding consultants, and an accompanying document that listed all of the information that was withheld was 12 pages long.

The first logo — which featured a shield topped with a row of three medieval-style battle axes floating above wavy blue lines — was met with widespread ridicule and criticism on Bainbridge when it was unveiled in June.

The project to “brand” Bainbridge was controversial beyond the first attempt at a logo, however, with islanders questioning the city’s move to hire an off-island and out-of-state company for the job. There were also concerns about the necessity for the branding project itself.

Schulze told the council the city would work with local graphic artists to finish the project.

The city manager also said that the city had contacted the media Tuesday to announce the termination of the contract.

City officials did not contact the Review with the news, and city officials have yet to respond to request for comment on the logo project made by the newspaper a week ago.